Chapter 1: Oceans Away
I spent three years of my life
in a negative relationship with a man that lived over three thousand miles away,
in the UK. Miles and miles of ocean and land separated us, but I thought he was
the only man that would ever love me.
Always
the fat girl in class, my life revolved more around making others laugh rather
than pursuing crushes. That is not to say I didn't try chasing them anyway. I knew
the outcome, though: the boys always liked the other girls, the skinny girls.
Me? I was the ‘fun friend’. My yearbooks are filled with homages to my sense of
humor and even sometimes to my friendly nature. Other girls were told to call
the boys over the summer, reminded of their beauty, and endlessly complimented.
My sense of humor was about all anyone ever noticed about me.
"Am
I ugly?" I would ask close friends. No matter what age, I always got the
same answer in some form or another.
"Don't
be ridiculous. You're really funny and that counts for a lot." They would
smile wide with kind eyes, avoiding mine. My question never directly answered.
I began to think this was all for me – humor. My only redeeming quality. I would
never be ‘pretty’ in a conventional sense.
Now
this isn't to say that beauty and boys are everything in life. I can guarantee
you that they will never be everything in your life. They aren’t in mine. They
are a side mission, not a main quest. However, I wanted nothing more than to find
a man to join my story, to build along with me. I think we all want someone
with whom to share our journey.
Right now,
you’re reading this book for one of three reasons. Reason A: the humor in which
each story unfolds - a good laugh is great for your skin* (*not medically
proven.) Reason B: you want to avoid some of the same speed bumps I hit and
save your sanity. Reason C: you want to see if our stories match and make sure
everything is going as normal as possible. Relatively speaking. I don’t really mind
whichever reason it is, but I do hope you gain something from my tale, and my
sage wisdom. That being said, let me take you back to where this all started.
Desperate to
fill that superficial abyss, I landed with the man from England.
We
agreed that we would never see other people. We agreed it was a real
relationship, despite only seeing each other twice a year, during my Christmas
break from college and in the summer after school ended. He could easily get
time off work, and spent most, if not all of it, with me. Looking back now, I'm
not sure if it was selfish of me to take all his vacation time. Of course, he never
let me forget how much it cost his wallet. Never mind that I worked all summer
long and was barely able to afford my trip to him come December.
Yet,
no matter what, no matter how much each of us spent, it was never enough. The
heartbreak we had to suffer each time the trip came to a close was immensely
painful. It was like taking down decorations after a holiday: you're happy to
get back to normal life, but some of the flair is missing and you feel it every
day it's gone. Except with the relationship, things never went back to that
sense of normalcy. It just got harder as the days went.
The
drives back to the airport were always quiet. Our last moments together for
months and we spent them in silence with the occasional sniffle as we held back
tears. The last time we were together (before we decided on a major change), I
couldn't stop crying. I held onto him in the airport and repeated the same
sentence over and over for five minutes straight.
"I
don't want to leave you," my voice whimpered between chest-deflating sobs.
He would rub my back and rest his cheek on the top of my head cooing a shush.
His tears hit my hair faster than my tears soaked his shirt. Maybe we both knew
it was the end for us. There had to be something in us knowing we would never
do this again. The painful goodbyes were over. We would never watch each other
walk away into the long airport security lines again.
"Hey,
look at me. The next time you're on a plane here will be the last time you fly
alone. Next time, I'll be with you. And every time after that. It will be us.
Together." He kept his words hushed. Not because he didn't want anyone
else to hear, but because he was doing his damn best to soothe my blubbering
self. I nodded, wiping tears off my red-blotched cheeks. My hand gripped the
handle of my suitcase and I felt the heaves within my chest slow. That was the last
time I was truly in his arms. The last time the emotion had any real meaning.
It was mere weeks later it ended.
After
that big change I mentioned.
I
had planned to leave behind the United States to be with him in England. My
family, friends, my entire life would change in order to be with this man I had
fought with more times than dreams of him filled my mind. Ironically, I often
made up dreams to tell him because he would tell me about ones he had involving
me. My mind wandered during the day, but come night, my subconscious never even
bothered. I had more dreams about hockey players that I'd never met as opposed
to the man I planned on spending the rest of my life loving. That probably
should have hit me like a ton of bricks, but it didn't. In the end, it came
down to one mistake. That one mistake showed me everything I overlooked.
Everything I pushed aside because I thought he was it, my only one.
In
our last seven weeks together, we tested everything we knew about being in a
relationship. We never spent more than three weeks together at a time over our
three year stint. Yet here we were, getting ready to be together for a large
block of time. He was in America for two weeks to see me graduate from college,
and then I flew back with him to spend five weeks in England. And if that went
well, it was going to be forever.
My time staying
with him was amazing at first. He would wake up and kiss me goodbye as he left
for work. I would have dinner ready for when he got home. Minus the night his
roommate told me the cooktop was on low when it was actually on high and it
burnt the meatballs beyond recognition. Everything seemed perfect.
But,
as everyone knows, perfect can't last.
We
began fighting. Stupid, pointless, absurd fights. One night he was in his
kitchen, running around trying to make a nice dinner for the two of us. He was
sweating and overwhelmed. When I offered help, he took it, but criticized every
single thing I did.
"Can
you knock it the fuck off?" My voice was straight and low, my hands steady
on the knife and cutting board.
"I
just want the carrots cut thicker." His jaw was squared, eyebrows
furrowed.
"There
isn't enough time to have thick-cut carrots cook. We need them thin because
everything else is already done. I'm not an idiot, I can cut carrots." My
eyes closed, but I still could feel the heat in the kitchen adding to my
already boiling blood.
"I
don't want thin carrots."
"Well
I'm not waiting all day for thick carrots to cook."
"Then
get out of the kitchen." He took the carrots off the cutting board and
waited for me to leave. I went upstairs to his room and sat on the bed staring
out the window. An hour later, he came into the room slowly and placed a plate
down in front of me on the bed before turning on the TV. I heard his fork hit the
plate and then he started chewing with his mouth open. A habit I hadn't noticed
before spending that kind of time together, but it grew more and more annoying
each day. I think he picked it up from his roommate because I didn't remember
this habit when we were first together.
Maybe I was blissfully
unaware before, and now was slowly falling out of love. Maybe the fight just
opened my eyes a little wider to all the flaws. Either way, there they were, on
display. Crowned by that horrible smacking of open-mouth chewing. And don’t
tell me the sound of a human chewing like a cow is sweet and endearing. Because
it’s not. At least to me. After a few minutes, he stopped and angrily sighed.
"Aren't you going to eat? I cooked a nice meal."
"I'm
not hungry, thanks."
"Are
you fucking kidding me?" The bed shook as he stood in a huff. He threw his
fork onto the plate with a loud clink. I saw his hand reach over and snatch the
plate from in front of me and, in a blur, threw it behind me into the trash can
with such force that it broke into a ton of pieces. Food and broken plate
scattered all around, and a few bit even landed in the trashcan. He stormed off
with his plate and didn't come back to the room until I had fallen asleep, and
was gone by the time I woke up the next morning.
It
was that night and the following night I was so upset that I forgot to take my
birth control. That second night without birth control, we also had sex. I was
still upset, but wanted to make him happy, so I pretended to be okay. Unfortunately,
we had decided not to use condoms anymore. We were in a committed relationship,
both clean…and both so stupid. He told me that condoms hurt him and made it harder
for him to stay erect. I foolishly let him go without one. Yet when the pregnancy
scare happened, all of the blame went to me. He only had one thing to say about
the whole thing.
"You
have three choices: keep it, abort it, or give it away. I'm not comfortable
giving it away and we can't be together if you keep it." So, only one
choice, really. He offered no support, no kind words, nothing to help me feel
less trapped. He blamed sleepless nights on me and piled all of his stress on
this accident. It wasn't a mistake we both were in together, it was all on my
shoulders. He started ignoring me. Days would pass without him even sending a
smile.
When
I found out I wasn't pregnant, it was the beginning of the end. Nothing ever
felt the same after that. Eventually I told him I wasn't moving to the UK. I
couldn't. Not if he was going to blame me for every mishap, isolate me, and make
me feel like nothing more than a mistake. There was nowhere I could go, no
friends or family to rely on if he were to tear me down like that again. After
I told him all of this, all of the empty feelings and worry I had about moving
there to be with him, about how I didn't think I could do it, he responded
with, "Okay, it's over."
I've
had problems with self esteem my entire life from being overweight. It affected
me in ways you could never imagine. As I write this sentence now, I feel the
dread of a ‘not good enough’ mental breakdown creeping up. It always lurks in
the back of my mind, waiting for the perfect time to leap and sink into the
depths of my heart where no daylight can get, no matter how bright it shines. I
end up drowning in the warm sunlight while my still beating heart continues to
pump cold thoughts. Never good enough is not a good slogan for yourself.
You are always
good enough. Always. I promise.
It
was only a week after getting back to the States when I wanted to see what was
out there for me, for an overweight twenty-something. It hit me hard, the idea
that guys could still like me despite the way I look. Despite my weight, despite
my less-than-average face. Despite that, and despite my own person
reservations, I am considered desirable.
Maybe not as much as other women, but enough to get me laid. Apparently.
However,
time for a 180 as I turn this sob story into a continuous ‘what the fuck’
moment.
Let
me show you the world of dating apps and what actually happens when people say
‘I totally want to date’ and then live on that lie for months while they
awkwardly spend time and money on someone for an entirely too expensive, and
mediocre, fuck.
It's
really not as glamorous as movies and TV make it out to be. It's mostly a lot
of ‘what do I do now’ moments, followed by naked escapades, and confused drives
home where you laugh out loud at yourself with a little bit of crying. Or maybe
a lot of crying. It all depends, you know?
Here
is where I beg any family members to stop reading. Seriously. Please.
To
the rest of you: join me. Marvel in my disasters. Take notes. I have plenty of
excuses for getting out of bad dates, examples of what not to do, and little
tidbits of life advice I'm sure you'll want to take along with you in your
pocket right next to your condom. Don't do everything I did. Or do, I'm not
your mother. Maybe by the end of this, you'll feel like an amazing person with
new found confidence gained from reading about how I found confidence. Or you
gained it because you feel better than me after all my stupid mistakes. Either
way, congrats!
Disclaimer:
The rest of these pages contain copious amounts of profanity, crass behavior,
and graphic descriptions of sex. I’m not going to apologize if you get
offended, but I did warn you.
